Putin sends ?Chechen? special operation forces to SyriaFri Dec 09, 2016 05:26 | The SakerThis SITREP was written for the Unz Review: http://www.unz.com/tsaker/putin-sends... Very interesting news today: according to the journal Izvestia, Russia will be sending operators from the so-called “Chechen” special forces battalions

Moveable Feast Cafe 2016/12/08 ? Open ThreadThu Dec 08, 2016 21:30 | Herb Swanson2016/12/08 21:30:02Welcome to the ‘Moveable Feast Cafe’. The ‘Moveable Feast’ is an open thread where readers can post wide ranging observations, articles, rants, off topic and have animate discussions of

His own man ? or someone?s puppet?Wed Dec 07, 2016 18:05 | mod editorThis comment was chosen by Mod KL from the post “Is Donald Trump really only a showman who will prepare the USA for war?”. The moderator feels this comment is

Charles Taylor’s sentencing to 50 years’ imprisonment on 11 counts of war crimes is undeniably momentous. However, with Sierra Leoneans still suffering abject poverty and remaining in dire need of aid, it must be questioned for whose benefit the costly War Crimes Court really is, writes EMMA PURDY

The Special Court for Sierra Leone will conclude this year on a triumphant note, with former Liberian president Charles Taylor now the first ex-head of state convicted by international justice since the 1946 Nuremburg trials.

The 64-year-old was found guilty this April of arming and supporting Revolutionary United Front rebels in exchange for illegally mined blood diamonds and thus “aiding and abetting” the country’s brutal civil war. He was sentenced on 30 May to 50 years’ imprisonment, having been held “criminally responsible” by judges after a protracted four-and-a-half-year trial.

From the outset in January 2008, after Taylor boycotted the initial 2007 proceedings, the trial was lauded as the first ever of a former African head of state in an international court. Taylor was the Court’s 11th defendant from a total of 21 indictments since its establishment in January 2002, its remit being to try “those who bear the greatest responsibility for serious violations of international humanitarian law” during the 11-year conflict.

As the leaders of the global diamond industry gathered in Vicenza, Italy for the annual meeting of the World Diamond Council, Palestinians remained trapped in a surreal nightmarish existence under the cosh of a diamond-funded, nuclear-armed belligerent regime: "The Israeli forces used [taser guns] and I have bruises on my arms and legs. I saw them open a protester's mouth by force and spit in it, and they spit in my face as well. While being under custody, a police officer of Ramle district addressed both me and another female activist while being cuffed with verbal sexual harassment, threatening to rape us. I have to admit I burst in tears ."

At 4.30am this morning the Occupy Galway camp was forcibly removed by Gardai and Council workers. At 1pm we held a public assembly with around 100 people in attendance. The mood at the assembly was one of determination and optimism and it was agreed by all that the fight is only just getting started!

A political struggle in a European nation of less than three million, largely ignored by other socialists in Europe, has nevertheless come to the fore in the capitalist media repeatedly since the late 1960s. This has been largely as a result of the the Basque people’s struggle for socialism and independence from the Spanish and French states, a struggle led for decades by Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, the marxist armed organisation better known by its acronym, ETA. The organisation reawakened Basque national consciousness, has worked with others for the restoration of Euskara, the Basque language, organised Basque workers and faced the repression of the General Franco dictatorship in the Spanish state. Famously, in 1973 it assassinated the Prime Minister of the state, Admiral Carrero Blanco, Franco’s right-hand man, which hastened the fragmentation of the dictatorship and its passage to partial democracy.

For the past six months and longer once Libya had fallen to the NATO sponsored 'rebels', we have faced a continuous media onslaught about Syria with reports of protests, shootings, killings, attacks, bombing and so forth. The backdrop to the narrative is that this is part of the Arab Spring which started last year and it is a good thing overall. So many people are probably wondering what really has been happening, given that this is the same media that was cheer leading the Iraq war almost 10 years ago even though at least a million+ are now dead as a result. And yet somehow they want to imply that they are doing the right thing now. We should also recall that this is the same media that is promoting austerity and encouraging us to accept the blame for the mad years of the bubble and as a consequence we should pay up the €90 billion bailout and in the process see all the state services stripped to the bone. They are presenting the uncomplicated truth surely

Indymedia Ireland wish to pay tribute to the late leader Comrade Fidel Castro who died on Fri 25th Nov 2016, aged 90. He was an iconic figure of the 20th century and perhaps most famous for leading Cuba away from the clutches of a dictator and the mafia which ran the country on behalf of the US prior to that and then to events of the CIA backed failed invasion to overthrow him referred to as the Bay of Pigs and then later to the Cuban missile crisis which brought the world to the brink. This came about because the US had placed nuclear missiles in Turkey which were 15 minutes flight time to Moscow and Castro allowed the Soviet Union to respond in kind by placing Soviet missile in Cuba which were 15 minutes flight time to Washington.

Not only that he and Cuba defied the US for many decades simply by existing despite the US openly being hostile including imposing economic and financial sanctions against Cuba since the revolution and an estimated 600 assassination attempts against him and for daring to give the example that there is another way to exist than naked capitalism. A successful example on their doorstep of a state that provided benefits such as education, health and general well-being for their citizens is what the US most feared. Even to this day, the health system and life expectancy exceeds anything in Latin American and including huge swaths of the USA itself and this lesson is surely being brought home to many not just in the US but elsewhere where many are mired in puntative debt and are prey to vulture capitalists and increasing unstable and uncertain existence in their daily lives.

The burial of Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (LNMB - Heroes Cemetery) was hurriedly and secretively carried out, with military-style logistical support. A military helicopter brought the body from Ilocos Norte, where the former dictator’s body was displayed in the Marcos Museum, to the LNMB. The marines and the police were mobilized to encircle the perimeter of the cemetery. They were placed on ‘red alert’.

This article has been presented and discussed by the leadership and organizers of the Partido Lakas ng Masa (Party of the Laboring Masses - PLM) to mark the coming 100-day anniversary of the Duterte administration. It is a contribution to the discussion among the Left and progressive forces on how to view this administration and the tasks ahead.

On Saturday, 24 September, LASC and the Mexico-Ireland Solidarity Collective organised a vigil at the Mexican embassy to remember and to call for justice for the 43 missing students of Ayotzinapa and the thousands more like them who have been disappeared in Mexico.

Patrick Poole describes the discussion of a document entitled “The Project”, which so far has been limited to the top-secret world of Western intelligence communities.

It was only through the work of an intrepid Swiss journalist, Sylvain Besson, that information regarding The Project was finally been made public. It was found in a raid of a villa in Campione, Switzerland on November 7, 2001.

Included in the documents seized was a fourteen-page plan dated December 1, 1982, outlined a twelve-point strategy for a flexible, multi-phased, long-term approach to the “cultural invasion” of the West.

Nothing should inspire the public’s outrage more than the chasm that exists between the haves and have nots in Philippine society. And what better indicator can there be of inequality than when poor people suspected of involvement in drugs start dropping dead on the streets while the rich and powerful escape plunder charges through the courts?

Member countries of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) renewed a mandate for the UN agency on economic issues. The agreement will guide UNCTAD's work for the next four years.

Cardinal Peter Turkson, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, called on a United Nations development summit to address debt, tax, trade and environmental policies that impact poverty.

The idea of abolishing high denomination banknotes is more and more present in political talks around the world. The European Central Bank already announced the death of the €uro 500, tomorrow it might be the Benjamin ($100). What is next? Why do our governments want to get rid of cash and why don’t we have a word to say about it?

US capitalism has had a century of relative political stability through the domination of its politics by its two capitalist parties. This is now coming to an end. A new era in US and world politics is opening up.Sean Throne

Thankfully, before it's too late, I realized the truth; that is, anything which is organized by the Malaysia's Opposition ([especially by racist and fascist anti-Indigenous/anti-Muslim party of DAP (Democratic Action Party – ('democratic', my foot) - suspected to receive much hidden donation from ISrael, to the total of US 300 million and training from Mossad, through Singapore-based account] including under the guise of the so-called Human Rights March .

“The parliamentary regime leaves everything to the decision of majorities; how shall the great majorities outside parliament not want to decide? When you play the fiddle at the top of the state, what else is to be expected but that those down below dance”?
- Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, IV (1852)

Last Saturday the Irish Council Against Bloodsports captured another shocking piece of video footage exposing cruelty in hare coursing...this time at the Ardpatrick and Kilfinane coursing fixture held in County Limerick. At great risk to herself (there's a strict ban on "authorised photography" at coursing events, enforced with threats and sometimes physical assault), Aideen Yourell of ICABS managed to record part of the fixture.

The shock victory of Donald Trump in defiance of both the polls and most of the US establishment is testimony to the deep anger felt by many millions of working class Americans at their abandonment by the system.

The defeat of Bernie Sanders by the Democratic Party elite made it possible for a billionaire racist and sexist to present himself as the voice of that anger. There is much evidence that if Sanders had been the candidate he would have beaten Trump comfortably.

This press release was reported on the 3rd but it has only come to our attention recently and it is likely did not receive much coverage. Therefore we are posting it here.

In a frankly shocking move, the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) had its bank accounts closed last week by Bank of Ireland without any proper explanation other than we no longer met their “risk appetite”.

It is a move which appears to be part of a campaign orchestrated by the Israeli government to silence organisations which support the global boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign which aims to pressure Israel until it ends its occupation of Palestine and adheres fully to international law ensuring freedom, justice and equality for the Palestinian people.